Episodes
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Let me take a wild guess here... There are things you want to change about your church. You have a list. You dream about what it would be like if you could make the changes you want to make. If only your leadership team, elders, staff, congregation, etc would just get onboard with you!! This episode will help you with that! I'm going to walk you through the concepts from my favorite book on leading change in your church. This book is a tried and true gem. I've used the principles it teaches for years, and they are tried and true. What is it? Watch or listen to find out!
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Ahh, a pillar of virtue. One who floats on the clouds unaffected by criticism, temptation, angry congregants and everything in between. That is basically what is expected of you at all times as a pastor. Is this fair? Is this biblical? Who gets to define how a "pillar of virtue" behaves? And how does this intersect with the qualifications for pastors that Paul lays out in 1 Timothy? In our final episode of this series on the unrealistic expectations pastors face, we'll dive into it all and discover how we should deal with this particularly hard to fulfill expectation.
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Missing episodes?
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Can weddings, funerals and baptisms lead to burnout? It depends on how you manage the expectation of being the officiant of all those ceremonies. In this episode, we discuss how to set the expectations and manage the responsibility of weddings, funerals and baptisms - and any other rituals, ceremonies or sacraments you're expected to facilitate.
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I would guess that when you signed up to be a pastor, the absolute LAST thing on your mind was that one day you'd be expected to manage HR at your church. That you would effectively be a human resources director on top of being the spiritual shepherd and preacher of your church. Nevertheless, the expectation to hire staff, fire staff, develop staff, and build a good workplace culture probably falls on you - if you haven't done something about that expecation. In this episode, I'm going to give you a three part framework for how to manage the responsibility of HR in your church so that it doesn't take every last ounce of energy you have!
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Your church needs money to operate. Almost nothing happens without it. And the expectation of raising enough funds for the church to meet its budget and fund special projects often falls squarely on you, the pastor. How do you manage such an important responsibility? In this episode, I'll give you a three part framework for fulfilling your role in your church's fundraising.
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How do you handle the expectation of pastoral care in your church? Too often the senior pastor takes on this burden nearly entirely. This can become a massive drain on you - spiritually, emotionally and physically. The people in your church have to be cared for, but it doesn't have to be you carrying that burden. In this episode, I'll lay out a framework for making sure that everyone is taken care of without you losing yourself in the process.
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When you signed up for ministry, did you know you'd be expected to function as a CEO? Oh, and you need to give a keynote address to the whole organization every Sunday. And, you better lead at a world class level. And bring the right team around you. And never let the church's attendance flatten or decline. And make sure you, your spouse and kids all remain pillars of virtue through every challenge. If you fail at any level as the CEO of the church, you will be replaced. Nothing to it, right? In this episode, we are examining the crippling expectation that pastors be the CEO of their church. We will discover a way to deal with this expectation so that we can come out on the other end with our sanity intact.
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If you preach, you know the pressure of making your sermons awesome. But it's not just your content that has to be impeccable. Your delivery has to be at an expert level as well. You simply "must" be: -engaging but not too confrontational -humorous but not glib -biblical but not a seminary lesson -entertaining but still substantive -thorough but not long-winded. Easy peasy right? Recently a pastor wrote an article sharing why he has decided to leave pastoral ministry for good. His article went viral as so many people resonated with his sentiments on the pressures, stresses and unrealistic expectations pastors face. One of the expectations he lists is Professional Speaker. In this episode, we'll dive into that expectation to see how to manage it without losing our minds in the process.
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Recently a pastor wrote an article sharing why he has decided to leave pastoral ministry for good. His article went viral as so many people resonated with his sentiments on the pressures, stresses and unrealistic expectations pastors face. In this episode, we'll dive into his article and see what we can learn from his experience. If you've ever felt as if they pressures of ministry are too great to bear, this episode is for you.
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When we preach, we need one thing from our listeners in order to get our message across to them: their attention. If they are not listening, the message is not making an impact. This is why building tension in the beginning of your message is so important. It signals to the listener that the message is worth listening to. There are many ways to approach tension building, but in this episode I'm going to show you the best way.
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Recently I received a question from a subscriber who asked me about how to move from preaching messages with multiple points to preaching one-point messages. I love this question because it begs another question: Why would you want to preach a one-point message? In this episode, we'll explore how to prepare and preach a one-point message as well as why it can be a great way to go!
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Church attendance is in decline overall. But this is not just among those who have left the faith entirely. Even those who are committed Christians are attending church less and less. In an article on his website, Carey Nieuwhof explores why. In this episode, we'll dive into the ten reasons he gives for why church attendance is declining and what we can do about it in our churches.
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If you've ever watched a video of yourself preaching, you've probably noticed some things you're doing that are distracting to your listeners. All of us could use some coaching in this area. When I look back through videos of my sermons I notice more distracting tendencies than I care to admit! But there is hope and we can all overcome these by knowing what they are and working to eliminate them. In part two of this series, I want to offer five common distractions I’ve observed in preachers over the years. For each one I'll give simple solutions to correct them so that your messages are as distraction-free as possible!
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Every preacher has physical tendencies that unintentionally distract the audience. Sometimes these are known by the preacher and other times they are ticks and habits that must be pointed out to be changed. All of us could use some coaching in this area. When I look back through videos of my sermons I notice more distracting tendencies than I care to admit! But there is hope and we can all overcome these by knowing what they are and working to eliminate them. In this episode, I want to offer five common distractions I’ve observed in preachers over the years. For each one I'll give simple solutions to correct them so that your messages are as distraction-free as possible!
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Living things grow. If something isn’t growing, it’s dying. This is why a church that is not growing is a cause for concern. A church should be alive and one way to know if a church is alive is to look at the numbers. Numbers aren’t everything, but numbers represent people and each person has a story and every story matters to God (I didn’t come up with that, but I love it). Every church leader should be intentional about positioning their church for growth. This is why I’ve pulled together my list of the best five books on church growth. Each one of these books will give you strategies and actionable best-practices to help grow your church.
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A few years into my preaching ministry, I began to be intrigued with this idea: What if I could train myself to not need notes when I preach? What if I could prepare in such a way that I could deliver a message and never look down, but maintain eye contact and physical engagement with my listeners from start to finish? What if you could, too? In part two of this series, we'll dive into more of how to train ourselves to not look at our notes when we preach.
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We’ve all seen this happen. The preacher walks up to the stage with a Bible, some pieces of paper, and a binder. He spends the first few seconds placing everything on the podium. While he’s doing this the audience is mostly looking at the top of his head as he looks down. As he begins speaking he reads from one piece of paper, looks up, finds another one in his binder, reads it, looks up again, and then looks down for his next idea. Aside from the sloppiness and the seemingly un-prepared vibe this gives off – it also risks not engaging the audience. Let’s contrast that scenario with the preacher who gets up on stage and speaks with clarity and command of the room, engages everyone with eye contact and energy, and you never see him look down, fumble through pages, or read from anything but the Bible. From a communications perspective, the preacher in our first scenario is far less likely to connect with his listeners. He is missing a vital aspect of capturing people’s attention immediately. Considering the fact that I’d like to avoid making the fatal mistakes the preacher in the first scenario made, I began to be intrigued with this idea: What if I could train myself to not need notes at all? What if I could prepare in such a way that I could deliver a message and never look down, but maintain eye contact and physical engagement with my listeners from start to finish? What if you could, too? In this episode, I want to share with you how I've trained myself to preach without looking at my notes.
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It amazes me the insights and wisdom available to us in great preaching books. My preaching ministry has benefited vastly from some of the books I've read on the topic. I’ve pulled together the books that have impacted my preaching the most. Each one of these books will help you improve your preaching in distinct ways. I love all of them for different reasons, and my copies are all marked up. In this episode, I'm sharing my list of the best 5 books on preaching.
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Every time we preach we have an opportunity to fulfill our God-given calling to impact lives with the truth of God’s Word and the hope of the gospel. But the effectiveness of our preaching is impacted by a host of variables we cannot control, including distractions in the room. But there is something we can control, and that is how well we prepare. I find one of the most often neglected aspects of effective sermon preparation is rehearsing the sermon. By rehearsing I mean preaching the entire message by yourself (or to a handful of people) before you actually preach the sermon to your church. The reluctance to rehearse is varied. Some preachers might think it’s awkward to preach to themselves. They’re totally right, by the way. It is awkward, but that does not mean you shouldn’t do it. Other preachers might avoid it because they don’t think it’s necessary. Still others may have just never thought of it. In this episode, I will show you why I believe the often neglected step of rehearsing the sermon is essential to great sermon delivery. We'll also dive into how to rehearse your message for maximum impact.
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You make points in every sermon you preach. You try to communicate at least one point. One idea. One bottom line. You may have one major point but a number of supporting points. The point is, you make points. Get the point? So, what do you do with every point you make? Is it enough just to say the words. “My main point is _________. Okay, let’s close in prayer.” Well, we both know that would be insufficient. We have to do more than just say a point for it to stick. But how do we do this? How do we develop sticky points that land on people in powerful ways? If you find that your points are not getting across the way you want, it might be that they're missing three key ingredients. In this episode, we are going to dive into the three things you must do with every point you make in your sermons.
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